According to Artistotle, there are 4 types of causes:

  1. The material cause “that out of which” ( The bronze of a statue)
  2. The formal cause “the Form”, “the account of what-it-is-to-be” ( the shape of a statue)
  3. The efficient cause “the primary source of the change” (the artisan, the art of bronze statue, the man who gives advice, the father of the child)
  4. The final cause “the end, what for the sake of which a thing is done” (health is the end of walking, exercises, drugs, surgery).

Consider the production of an artifact like a bronze statue. The bronze is the material cause in the production of the statue. The bronze is also a subject to change, the thing that undergoes the change and results in a statue. The bronze is melted and poured in order to acquire a new shape. Shape is the formal cause. The efficient cause or the principle that produces the statue is the art, not artisan. Aristotle provides an explanation of the production of the statue without referring to desires, beliefs, intentions of the artisan. Artisan possesses what steps are required to produce the statue. The statue is the final cause in the production of the statue. Statue is for the sake of which everything in the production process is done.

Artistotle offers a teleological explanation of the production of a bronze statue: makes a reference to the telos or end of the process. It does not depend upon the application of psychological concepts such as desires, beliefs, intentions. There are cases where the individual realization of the art obviously enters in the explanation of the bronze statue. For example, one may be interested in a particular bronze statue because that statue is the great achievement of an artisan who has not only mastered the art but has also applied it with a distinctive style. In this case, it is perfectly appropriate to make a reference to the belie and desires of the artisan.

Aristotle insists that all four causes are involved in the explanation of natural phenomena, and that the job of the student of nature is to provide the explanation of the change of natural bodies. The factors that are involved in the explanation of natural change turn out to be matter, form that which produces the change, and the end of natural change. The form and the end often coincide: of a man can be understood only in the light of the end of the process, that is to say, the fully developed man. A fully developed man is not only the end of generation; it is also what initiates the entire process. Thus, the student of nature is often left with three types of causes: the formal/ final cause, the efficient cause, and the material cause. According to Aristotle, most of his predecessors recognized only the material and the efficient cause.

Aristotle claims that explaining nature requires final causality. He discusses an argument of opponents who want to prove that material and efficient causes alone suffice to explain natural change. The argument is this:

(1) It rains because of material processes ( when the warm air that has been drawn up is cooled and becomes water, then this water comes down as rain)
(2) The corn in the field is nourished or the harvest is spoiled as a result of the rain, but it does not rain for the sake of any good or bad result.
∴  The good or bad result is just a coincidence.

By analogy, opponents want to apply this argument to the explanation of all natural change. For example, why cannot it be merely a coincidence that the front teeth grows sharp and suitable for tearing the food. When the teeth grows in just this way, then the animal survives. When they do not, then the animal dies. The way the teeth grows is not for the sake of the animal, and its survival or its death is just a coincidence.
Aristotle replies that the teeth regularly grow in the way they do. There is a regular connection between the need of the animal and the formation of its teeth. Coincidence does not explain it at all. Aristotle offers final causality as his explanation for this regular connection: the teeth grow in the way they do for biting and chewing food and this is good for animal. The final cause enters in the explanation of the formation of the parts of an organism like an animal as something that is good for the existence or the flourishing of the animal.

Since both the final and the formal cause are involved in the explanation of natural generation, we have to establish what is first and what is second. Aristotle argues that there is no other way to explain natural generation than by reference to what lies at the end of the process. Aristotle relies on the analogy between artistic production and natural generation, and the teleological model that he has developed for the explanation of artistic production. Consider, for example, a house building. There is no other way to explain how a house is built, or is being built, than by reference to the final result of the process, a house. The bricks and the beams are put together in a particular way for the sake of achieving a certain a certain end: the production of a house. This is true also in the case of natural generation. Aristotle puts this meaning into slogan: “Generation is for the sake of substance, not substance for the sake of generation”. Aristotle does not agree with Empedocles who explained the articulation of the human spine into vertebrae as the result of the twisting and turning when the fetus is in the womb. Aristotle argues that the fetus must have the power to twist and turn it the way it does. Moreover, it takes a man to generate a man. It is only by looking at the fully developed man that we can explain why the formation of the vertebrae takes place in the particular way it does.

Bibliography:

  • Aristotle, “Book 5, section 1013a”, Metaphysics, Translated by Hugh Tredennick, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols. 17, 18, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933